The Italian's Secret Baby (10 page)

‘The girl next door?'

He nodded. ‘There was nothing then, but we met up at college and were involved briefly, but it was nothing heavy. Then a few years later we met up at a party. A month later we were engaged. My family, especially my father, was over the moon,' he recalled.

‘But you couldn't go through with it.'

Roman's dark, saturnine features clenched. His lip curled into a self-derisive smile as their eyes met.

‘No, actually
she
couldn't go through with it. She ran off on the eve of the wedding with my best man.'

‘
Gracious!
That's…that's…' She gave a helpless shrug. Very little he could have told her could have shocked her more. Any response seemed hopelessly inadequate. ‘I'm sorry. That must have been awful for you.'

‘I've had better days, but it happened a very long time ago.'

Despite his apparent indifference Scarlet couldn't help but wonder if behind that casual attitude he was hiding his true feelings. Did he still love this woman who had dumped him so ignominiously? Had he gained his playboy reputation as a result of trying to forget his lost love?

‘I don't understand. If she dumped you how come your father blames you?'

‘There was a note. She asked me not to tell her parents until she had a chance to talk to them. I'm assuming she never did. Nobody but Mother and I know she ran off with Jake.'

‘But—'

‘It didn't last…she left for France and came back three weeks later alone. As far as my father is concerned I had the perfect woman and I drove her away. Maybe,' he mused, ‘he was right. There's a possibility that you'll meet her in Ireland—she's a teacher at the local primary school these days.'

‘When you meet up…' she began, then the implication of his words hit home. ‘I won't be going to Ireland.'

‘I'm sure Sam will be a lot more comfortable if you do.'

‘That's moral blackmail!' she accused angrily.

‘It's also common sense,' he pointed out. ‘Don't worry, my parents will love Sam,' he promised in a warmer voice. ‘There's no sinister reason I haven't spoken to my dad yet, I simply wanted to sort out things with you before I spoke to him.'

“‘Sort out?'” she repeated, her mouth forming a twisted smile as she angrily studied his lean face.
As if I can be filed away like a completed contract.
‘Are we
sorted
now?' she asked bitingly.

‘I simply meant…' Their eyes made contact, his lashes came down, but not before she had seen the seething frustration in those dark depths. ‘You are one prickly female, do you know that?'

‘I don't like the idea of being
sorted
.'

‘It's a figure of speech.'

‘Then maybe you should choose your words with more care.'

‘Dear God, I'm already walking on eggshells around you,' he claimed. ‘The next logical step would be for us to communicate through a third party. Think about it,' he suggested heavily. ‘All I knew for sure when I came here was Sam was my child, and you weren't the mother. I needed some answers.'

‘What did you think I'd done, kidnapped him…?' she suggested sarcastically.

‘I hadn't ruled out anything. As I've already said, all I knew for sure was you weren't the mother.'

‘How convenient I'm not beautiful and blonde,' she jeered. ‘Or you might not have realised it was impossible for me to be Sam's mum.'

A dark line of anger appeared along the crest of his cheekbones as their eyes made contact. His were darkly furious as they narrowed to angry glittering slits.

‘I'm beginning to think there's an element of jealousy in your hostility.'

“‘Jealousy?'” she parroted shrilly. ‘You think I'm jealous that you slept with my sister? You must be mad.' Her scornful laugh had a hollow sound to it.

‘I was thinking more along the lines of you being jealous because there is someone else with a claim to Sam and you're possessive, you want to keep him all to yourself. But if the other works?' One dark brow quirked suggestively.

A scorching flush travelled over her entire body as she gasped into the static silence that followed his words.

‘I wouldn't sleep with a man like you if my life depended on it!'

‘Not very original,' he mused, his hooded eyes trained on her heaving bosom. ‘But you get full marks for conviction,' he commended.

His tone of amused condescension made her want to throw something large and heavy at his smug face. She hadn't expected the news she didn't want to sleep with him to send him into a deep depression, but there was no need for him to treat it like a joke.

‘And,' she continued contemptuously, ‘if
I
was choosing a father for my baby,
you
wouldn't even make the list!' She stopped, an expression of horror stealing across her face as she drew back from the very brink of revealing her sister's shameful secret.

As much as Scarlet didn't like the man, she didn't dislike him enough to rub his nose in the humiliating fact that, far from getting accidentally pregnant, her sister had planned the entire thing. If he did go on to become part of Sam's life—and, while she wasn't ready to admit that out loud just yet, deep down she knew it was going to happen—what would she do then? How was she to know that revealing the truth would not colour any relationship father and son might come to have?

Would Roman feel differently about his son if he knew he had been tricked and used…? It wasn't inconceivable a man could resent a child born of such circumstances. No, she decided, nothing could be achieved from coming clean.

For several moments Roman remained silent. When he finally responded he no longer appeared in the mood to be diverted by her comments.

‘Having Sam provides you with the perfect excuse for you not getting out there, doesn't it?'

She responded with a grimace of genuine confusion to his observation. “‘Getting out there?'”

‘Have you always been scared of relationships?'

‘You think I use Sam as an excuse? That I'm commitment-phobic?' She released an incredulous laugh. ‘What you know about relationships could be printed on a match-box. And if by “getting out there” you mean joining the singles scene and hanging out in bars waiting to be picked up, I'm really not that desperate.'

‘I'm happy for you. I wish I could say the same myself, but this conversation is enough to make anyone desperate—' He broke off and heaved a deep sigh. ‘Do you think we could concentrate on the main objective of this conversation?'

She watched as he linked his hands behind his head and dropped his head back, the action exposed the long, powerful length of his brown throat. Her tummy muscles quivered.

‘What is the main objective of this conversation?' she asked huskily.

Roman unlinked his hands and let them fall to his side. ‘I'd like to get to know my son, and before you say anything hear me out.' Their glances locked and slowly, grudgingly, Scarlet nodded. ‘I don't expect this thing to happen overnight. Obviously it will be better for Sam if I become part of his life slowly…gradually.'

‘If you become part of Sam's life, you're going to become part of mine.'

‘Exactly,' he agreed, not reacting to the horror etched on her face. ‘Which is why I thought you might have some ideas on the subject.'

Scarlet stared at him incredulously. ‘
Are you kidding?
After what you've just thrown at me I can't even think straight!'

‘Well, we'll just have to put our heads together, won't we?' he gritted.

‘I wouldn't be seen dead with any part of my body within thirty feet of the corresponding part of yours!'

His features tautened. ‘Listen, my tolerance levels on this are pretty high because I know you think I'm a bastard. That I can accept,' he said heavily. ‘But we need…You've got to think of Sam,' he reproached sternly.

As if she had been thinking of anything else for three years! He didn't have the faintest idea.

‘You've got to stop turning this into something personal.'

Scarlet planted her hands on her hips and threw her head back. She was literally trembling with reaction.

‘Wanna bet?' she drawled.

‘Right, you want personal…fine.' He covered the space between them and grabbed the back of her head with one hand; with the other he framed her face. She looked at him with eyes wide and shocked; she smelt of flowery soap, shampoo, and warm woman, and Roman's body reacted violently to the combination.

‘Is this the sort of personal you had in mind?'

Even while he was saying it the voice in the back of his head was telling him he'd been looking for an excuse to do this ever since he'd met her. Once he started kissing her the voice wasn't telling him anything, because his brain took a back seat.

In the moment before her soft lips parted to allow his tongue to slide deep inside her warm mouth he heard, or rather felt, the broken whimper in her throat. The erotic little rasp sent a lick of heat through his blood and a corresponding jolt through his already rock-hard body.

She melted into him like warm butter. There was no hint of resistance in the body he had drawn against his, just heat and softness and the promise of more. Greedily he accepted the sweetness so unexpectedly offered him and it was only several hot, frenzied heartbeats later that he lifted his head.

The effort to do so was physically painful.

They didn't immediately step apart, just stood, bodies leaning into each other, breathing hard. Roman's fingers were still meshed into the shiny strands of slightly damp hair on her head and she had hold of his shirt in both hands.

When the drumming in his ears got quieter he could make out the words she kept repeating over and over. ‘Oh, my God…oh, my God…!'

‘Right, that was stupid,' he said, leaning his chin against the top of her head. ‘But inevitable,' he added half to himself. ‘Considering the level of attraction.'

His comment succeeded in jolting Scarlet free from the sensual lethargy that had engulfed her. With a cry she tore free of him and backed away, her angry eyes fixed on his taut features.

‘The only thing that's inevitable between us is mutual antipathy.' She rubbed her hand across her reddened, swollen lips. The action was purely symbolic; she didn't believe for a moment it would succeed wiping away the memory of his searing kiss.

She had never been kissed that way before, not in a way that had made her crave more than air the pressure of someone's lips on her own. It made her dizzy and breathless all over again to think of his tongue stroking inside her mouth.

His eyes trailed across her face, lingering on the soft, swollen contours of her full lips. He shrugged. ‘If you say so,' he said thickly.

‘Don't use that patronising tone with me,' she flared, wrenching her hungry gaze from his face. This wasn't the time to indulge in a staring match. ‘And don't treat me like a child.'

As she glared straight ahead her eye-line was on a level with his powerful chest. A chest that moments ago her breasts had been crushed against, softness against iron hardness. Her body had been plastered so close to his that she had been able to feel the heavy thud of his heart mingled with her own. Her eyes lifted as she tried to drag her thoughts clear of the dangerous memories.

Far from saving her, the retreat brought her eyes into direct contact with Roman's dark, deep-set, very angry eyes. Her lashes came down but not before a wave of sheer sexual longing had nailed her to the spot.

‘Then don't act like one,' he advised, his manner clipped and impatient. ‘I don't force myself on women.'

Scarlet shook her head to clear the sensual fog that made it hard for her to think straight. ‘Hell, no, you're irresistible,' she husked sarcastically. ‘You don't have to.'
Well, not with me, he doesn't.

The memory of her total surrender was terrifying. One kiss and she'd been his to do anything he wanted with. She had never relinquished control that way in her life and if the memory of it wasn't enough to terrify her, the fact that she had liked feeling that way, that part of her wanted to recapture the feeling, was!

His jaw tightened another notch in response to her sarcastic jibe. ‘You can't pretend that you were some sort of unwilling participant.'

Can and will,
Scarlet thought, responding to his claim with a provocative shrug of her slender shoulders.

‘That you didn't want to kiss me as much as I wanted to kiss you,' he continued between gritted teeth. ‘That neither of us wanted it to stop. You can't pretend those things and expect me to treat you seriously, can you?' By the time he had finished the incredulity in his voice had become scorn.